Launching Space Objects: Issues of Liability and Future Prospects

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-x

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2. Aims and Context

   1. Aims and Context

      Pages 1-19

3. The Labyrinth of Daedalus

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 21-21

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   2. The International Legal Framework

      Pages 23-75

   3. Domestic Launch Legislation and Regulations

      Pages 77-147

   4. General Rules of Common Law and Civil Law Susceptible of Governing Liability for Launch Activities

      Pages 149-254

4. Escaping the Labyrinth

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 255-255

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   2. Issues in Liability Risk Management and Proposals de Lege Ferenda

      Pages 257-305

   3. Some Concrete Proposals

      Pages 307-345

5. Back Matter

   Pages 347-386

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Launch activities performed by private entities deal with a complex legal environment. The Space Treaties provide a general liability framework. Launch participants are subject to regulatory or institutional control, and to domestic liability laws. Specific contractual practice has developed due to insurance limitations, the inter-participants' waivers of liability and claims.
This book synthesizes information on the norms of play, to allow the grasp of their relative weight and interactions in the assessment of liability risk for launch activities. It reveals a legal framework presently lacking sufficient predictability for an efficient liability risk management:

• the waivers of liability suffer weaknesses as do all such clauses, and lack uniformity and reliability; and
• the Space Treaties contain ambiguous terms preventing predictable determination of the States responsible for authorizing and supervising launch activities and for damage compensation, and do not reflect the liability of launch operators.

This book offers suggestions of new approaches for:

• harmonizing waivers of liability to improve their consistency, validity and flow-down; and
• improving the Space Treaties for their implementation to non-governmental launch activities.

In the launch community, the need for lawmaking is less compelling than in fields such as aviation. Nevertheless, adjustments to the present framework are proposed through model clauses and an international instrument, for further thinking and contribution by those sharing the opinion that creative lawmaking is needed now to prepare for tomorrow's endeavors.

• compensation
• insurance limitation
• launch activities
• launching space objects
• liability framework
• liability risk management
• waivers of liability

Policies and ethics